Faced with a souring public mood on health care reform, Democrats and their supporters are launching a national grassroots push Wednesday to show lawmakers that the majority of Americans still support overhauling the system.

Reform supporters are planning to hold more than 500 events between Wednesday and when lawmakers return to Washington Sept. 8, ranging from neighborhood organized phone banks to professionally staffed rallies with hundreds of people.

The Democratic National Committee and its grassroots arm, Organizing for America, are helping to organize the effort along with the Health Care for America Now, a group pushing to create government-run insurance plan.

"In these last few weeks of recess we want to demonstrate the energy, passion and commitment that the American people have to health insurance reform so that when members return after Labor Day they know that they can turn their attention to getting this done because they have the backing of the American people," said DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse.

Supporters have their work cut out for them. Many lawmakers were thunderstruck over the August recess by the anger and outrage expressed by their constituents in town hall meetings across the country. And in poll after poll, support for reform has eroded throughout the month.

But Democrats and their allies insist that the majority of Americans still support reform and have organized the grassroots campaign to buck up lawmakers as they get ready to head back to Washington.

"It is time to rise up and reform! The issue is redistricting. And it's the dirty little secret of modern politics.Right now, politicians get to draw their own districts most any way they want. And boy, do they. It's all designed to stifle competition and stack the deck before you even get to the polls."

- The Orlando Sentinel, 3/18/09

Redistricting is the once-a-decade process in which state legislators get to redraw the lines of their own districts in Florida. With no guidelines or standards in the Florida Constitution for drawing these districts, legislators have used the system to rig their districts in order to preserve and perpetuate their own power. To stop the political power-grab that has been leaving many Floridians without a voice, FairDistrictsFlorida.org has proposed two amendments to the Florida Constitution that would create fairness standards in the redistricting process. These fairness standards would prohibit legislators from drawing district lines for the purpose of favoring or disfavoring any incumbent or political party. The districts would have to be compact and community-based.These amendments have earned the unanimous endorsement of every major newspaper in the state.FairDistrictsFlorida.org has collected more than 1.4 million signed petitions so far – over 80% of what's needed to get these amendments on the ballot in 2010. But we are not there yet. The State of Florida charges a $.10 processing fee to turn these petitions in. That's a lot of money to raise if we want to stop the political favoritism in drawing district lines. Just last week, FairDistrictsFlorida.org launched 9/9/09: Donate for FairDistricts Day, the largest online fundraiser in Florida history. All across the state, Floridians are showing their overwhelming support by pledging to give and signing up to co-host this online event to raise the money for the turn-in fees!You can help in several important ways:

"This is not a Republican or Democratic issue…" (Naples News, 8/11/09)"Florida voters' rights are at stake – as is Florida's future well-being." (The Miami Herald, 6/21/09)"The system is rigged." (St. Petersburg Times, 5/6/09)

FairDistrictsFlorida.org is standing up against the system by proposing two amendments to the Florida Constitution that would establish fairness standards and stop this political free-for-all. They've collected 1.4 million petitions towards getting those amendments on the ballot – now we need to help raise the money to turn them in!I just signed up to be an online Co-Host of 9/9/09: Donate for FairDistricts Day, the largest online fundraiser in Florida ever! Will you pledge to give towards this historic movement? Just follow this link and pledge to give on 9/9/09 here: http://www.fairdistrictflorida.org/9909Together, we can change the course of Florida's history! Please, join me and pledge to give to FairDistrictsFlorida.org at the above link …we only have one chance to do this, and the time is now!Thanks,Copy & paste this into Twitter:On 9/9/09 FairDistrictsFlorida.org will host the biggest online fundraiser in FL history. Pledge to give/cohost at http://tinyurl.com/m2xjtlCopy & paste this into your Facebook status:On 9/9/09, FairDistrictsFlorida.org will host the biggest online fundraiser in Florida history. I just pledged to give. Will you help me make this fundraiser a success by going to http://www.FairDistrictsFlorida.org/9909 and joining the cause today?

Organizations United Together (OUT), a federation of LGBT and allied organizations dedicated to achieving equality and justice for LGBT Floridians has just announced that it endorses the National Equality March, which is on October 11. A list of the orgs is in a table below the fold.

An update on the March itself:

Major national LGBT organizations including the Gay Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC) have endorsed the march as have local and state grassroots organizations like Join the Impact Chicago, One Struggle One Fight and Freedom Democrats of Miami-Dade.

October 11 has been observed as "National Coming Out Day" since 1988. As well, this year commemorates the 30th anniversary of the first March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. "We're marching this October to demand action from the Federal government to protect our rights in all fifty states," said Kip Williams, one of the organizers. "Real equality can only come from the President, the Congress and the Supreme Court."

Equality Across America brings together veteran movement activists such as David Mixner, Torie Osborn, Cleve Jones, Anne Northrop and Nadine Smith, with new organizers like Williams and Robin McGehee, who lead the successful "Meet in the Middle" rally in Fresno, California following the California Supreme Court decision on Proposition 8. "We've got people from the Stonewall generation to the Facebook generation working together to win real equality," said McGehee. "We're tired of compromises and delays."

...Lt. Dan Choi, also a member of the march steering committee, is working to ensure a strong presence by LGBT and straight veterans at the march. "The majority of Americans reject discrimination in the armed forces, it's time for Congress and the Administration to move on this and all issues of equality for LGBT Americans."

First: The teabaggers must not win this one. Back in elementary school, most of us learned that when a bully learns that intimidation and threats work, he'll will keep doing more of it. In fact, the longer he goes without comeuppance, the bolder and badder he becomes, and the harder it is to make him stop. Every success teaches him something new about how to use terror for maximum effect and tempts him to push the envelope and see what else he can get away with. Do nothing, and he'll soon take over the whole playground.

And it happens like this for bullies in groups, too. Living in a fascist regime is just living in a town dominated by the Mob, a street gang, the KKK, or a corrupt sheriff.

It only takes a small handful of thugs to terrorize people into giving up their civil rights, abandoning democracy and doing what they're told, just so they can keep their jobs, windows and families intact.

The main imperative in life becomes staying off the goons' radar. All the enforcers need to do is make an horrific example out of one or two troublemakers every now and then -- and the resulting fear will keep everybody else quietly in line.

Conservatives have tried to subdue other Americans this way for centuries, so there's nothing new going on here. And this is the way they've always done it: they used race (and yes, the birthers and anti-health care rioters are, at root, all about race) and economic calamity to whip up a posse of terrified, well-armed vigilantes, and then turned them loose on society to "enforce order."

Given their colossal investment in organizing and indoctinating the teabaggers, we'd be stupid to believe that this is all going to go away when Congress returns to Washington in September. Having had a taste of power and publicity, these newly empowered mobs are very likely to stick around town and see what else they can do to keep the muck stirred up.

Our choice now is stark: knock them back while they're still new, small and not yet entrenched; or deal with them later, when they've got some real power to fight back with, and the cost to all of us will be so much higher.

Second: Think nationally, fight locally. The conservatives are running this effort as a national campaign -- but that's not where the real fight is. The terror that fuels fascism is always intensely, intimately local in scale.

Fascist goon squads always recruit from the neighborhood -- they're built on people you know. Since that's where they start, that's where they have to be stopped.

This is why all the best tactics involve community-level action. The high-level fight in Congress and the media is already under way, and the Democratic leadership is fighting it with unusual elan. But anybody who sits this one out because they assume that the folks in D.C. have it all handled for them shouldn't be surprised when they start getting "special treatment" from longtime neighbors, or discover that they can't park their car downtown any more without having it vandalized.

That's just the next baby step up from where we are now; and in some places, it's already started to happen. Winning this means getting out there and defending our community's standards and boundaries now, while they're still there to be defended.

Third: Brush up on our nonviolent resistance -- but leave the heavy lifting and rough enforcement to the cops. It's true that the only way to stop a bully is to stand up to them. But there are ways to stand up to them that don't involve getting down to the eye-for-an-eye level.

Back home, we had a saying: "Never mudwrestle a pig. You will lose, and the pig enjoys it."

If we meet thuggery with thuggery, we will lose, because they're just plain better at it. And make no mistake: they will enjoy it. Right now, the right wing is looking -- hard -- to make the case that they're the innocent victim and the left instigated this whole thing. This quote from religious right organizer Gary Bauer is typical of the genre:

My fear, given the stakes and emotions on both sides, is that union thugs, ACORN activists and left-wing anarchists (who ransacked the streets of Minneapolis and St. Paul during last year's Republican National Convention) will turn violent, and innocent people will get hurt. If that happens, the radical left will bear the responsibility for demonizing free speech.

The Nazis used this kind of victim-blaming to tremendous effect as they built up their party.

We must not -- must not -- give our proto-brownshirts any basis to make the same kind of argument. (Of course, the absence of evidence will only drive them to make up fake victims; but then we get to call them out as whining liars with a big fat persecution complex, which is always a fun way to spend a news cycle or two.)

It's about the moral high ground, people. Any choices we make must be consistent with our own values, or we betray both ourselves and the country.

Standing up for health care reform is important; but before that, the country needs to see us standing up for civil discourse and the right to democratic free speech. Since we're defending the rule of law, our best tactic is to use that law.

You have a right to attend a public meeting and speak your mind in a civil, respectful manner. You do not have a right to be disruptive or deprive other people of their right to be heard. And most jurisdictions have laws about disturbing the peace and creating a public nuisance -- laws, let's not forget, that the Bush regime didn't hesitate to stretch until the elastic gave out against people who merely showed up at meetings with the wrong bumper stickers or T-shirts.

Since we're not Bush goons, we can't go around arresting people who haven't yet broken any laws. But when people -- from either side -- cross that line, it's time for the cops and prosecutors to make the point for us: bullying people in a public meeting (or anywhere else) is illegal and will not be tolerated in this county.

Fourth: We need to make absolutely sure that the media get the story right. The teabaggers would run out of power with the flick of a switch if the media would just turn off their cameras. But the cold reality is that this kind of drama is a real ratings-booster.

It would be like telling lions to lay off that elephant carcass. Left alone, the media (local news in particular) will turn these people into cultural heroes. They couldn't turn their backs on this if the republic depended on it.

Since we can't beat 'em, we'll have to join 'em. The best cure for bad speech is always more speech. This means bringing cameras and documenting everything, getting it up on YouTube, and blogging it.

It also means coordinating rapid-response letterwriting to the local paper and keeping down-home reporters well-fed every single day with some new theme that reinforces the idea of concerned nonpartisan citizens trying to keep control over their democratic discourse in the face of organized thugs. Since the media are watching, let's make sure they see it all.

Fifth: Support legislators who don't show fear. The Democratic Party seems to be playing this just right (so far). The leadership has made it known that these noisy, scary people don't represent the 73 percent of Americans who support health care reform. The GOP is running the risk of being marginalized as not only the Party of No, but the Party of Moonbat Crazy.

If you've never attended a public meeting in your life, August 2009 is the month you need to start. Your congressperson's Web site probably lists a schedule, or at least a number you can call to inquire.

But that's just a first step. Do more. Write. Call. Find out where your local congressional office is, and just drop by when you're in the neighborhood. Tell the staff how you feel -- about health care reform, about the teabaggers, about your legislator's brave stance in the face of this.

If they're showing stress, encourage them to stand firm. A constituent in the office counts for thousands writing e-mails, so an in-person visit is 15 minutes incredibly well spent.

One visit or call is good. More is better. Put it in your schedule to contact your representatives at least once a week for the duration, and make sure they're not buckling under the pressure.

Sixth: Shut down the hate talkers. In most parts of the country, the teabaggers are coming straight out of right-wing talk-radio audiences. For hours every day, they're mainlining raw emotion and toxic misinformation.

They're going put your kids before "death panels!" They're going to kill your granny! You're going to have to call the White House to get a bone set! You'll be a Real American Hero if you get out there and join the "resistance!"

Cutting off this endless torrent of lies, fearmongering and validation will go a long way toward powering down the whole movement. (Conversely, what happens when these kinds of radio instigators are left to spin it all the way out to the end can be summed up in two words: Radio Rwanda.)

The basic recipe: Record their shows. Take notes of anything they say that is intimidating, threatening, or aimed at inciting violence against a named target. And while you're at it, note every single advertiser they have.

Then write a polite letter the CEOs of the sponsoring companies. Throw them some choice quotes from these shows and ask them if this is the kind of thing they want their product associated with. (Point out that if their own employees said things like this at work, they'd be fired on the spot.)

Often, the CEO has no clue that any of this is happening and will pull the ads as soon as she finds out what's being done in her name. This has worked extremely well -- and quickly -- at both the local and national level.

Finally: Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. Even if we succeed this time, let's not kid ourselves that this is over. The conservatives are investing a lot of money and effort to build a mass movement that is explicitly aimed at destroying a Democratic government -- and if we learned anything from the Clinton years, it's that they're not going to let up for a second as long as the Democrats are in control.

This is our new reality -- and it comes straight out of Hitler's playbook (check out Chapter 6 of Mein Kampf). Their intention is to keep the outrage junkies high by giving them a never-ending supply of new, made-up reasons to act out.

When the birth certificate fracas cools, they're standing by with "death panels." When that one's run its course, there will be something else -- over and over, every few weeks, for as long as the Dems rule.

Which means that even if we win this round, we can't stand down. We're going to be pushing back against these bullies, over and over, for the next three to seven years.

There are only two outcomes here. Either we get very good at spotting and stopping these attempts at a brownshirt takeover the minute they crop up; or they're going to get very good at public intimidation and keep ratcheting it up further toward outright violence and goon rule.

That's how it's going to be for the rest of this administration. The sooner we resign ourselves to the zero-sum nature of this fight, the sooner we can get on with getting good at it.

This reverses a 38 - 34 percent Sink lead in a June 9 survey by the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University. The key is among independent voters who shift from 32 - 27 percent for McCollum June 9 to 38 - 23 percent today.

Gov. Charlie Crist leads former state House Speaker Marco Rubio 55 - 26 percent for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, compared to 54 - 23 percent margin June 10.

The three potential candidates for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination, U.S. Reps. Kendrick Meek, Ron Klein and Corrine Brown, are bunched together and largely unknown to most Floridians.

"Bill McCollum has been on the ballot in Florida for decades in various campaigns and this exposure to the voters seems to be serving him well," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "Floridians know him better than they do Ms. Sink, who first ran for office in 2006. When voters are asked to rate him personally and in his job performance as attorney general he gets strongly positive ratings."

"Ms. Sink's numbers indicate she has made a good first impression on Florida voters, but a much larger share of the electorate does not know her compared to McCollum," said Brown.

Crist's lead over Rubio in a GOP primary shows no gender gap as 56 percent of women and 53 percent of men support him. His 60 - 30 percent job approval as Governor, while his highest disapproval ever, shows that his support extends well beyond his Republican base.

Answering the Challenge...

A few days ago, FairDistrictsFlorida.org launched 9/9/09: Donate for FairDistricts Day, the largest online fundraiser in Florida history. All across the state, Floridians have shown their overwhelming support by pledging to give and signing up to co-host this online event!

As we said last week, we've collected more than 1.4 million signatures. As we also mentioned, the State of Florida charges a $.10 processing fee per petition. That's a lot of money we need to raise if we want to stop the political favoritism in drawing district lines.

What does being an online Co-Host entail? It means you're pledging to give on 9/9/09, and pledging to take responsibility to make Donate for FairDistricts Day a success by asking your friends to pledge to give. The real work isn't just on 9/9/09 – it's every day between now and then. We need you to email all of your friends – a few times – call them and get them to commit on the phone, and be a leader in this movement!

- A personalized link you can send to your friends. Anytime someone pledges by clicking your link, you'll get the credit!

- A tracking link where you can log-in and see which of your friends have signed up.

Then, use those links to write an email to all your contacts about the event. Tell them that you've pledged to give and to be a Co-Host online, and ask them to join you in this important effort. You can also talk about 9/9/09: Donate for FairDistricts Day on blogs and social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter.

Many of you have taken the challenge so far. If you haven't signed up yet, please, pledge right now to give on 9/9/09 and sign up to Co-Host the Donate for FairDistricts Day online at http://www.fairdistrictsflorida.org/9909!

9/9/09 is getting closer every day…and so is fair redistricting in Florida!

Be a part of history…sign up to Co-Host this biggest-ever event today!

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About Me

I am progressive. I am liberal. I make no apologies. I believe government has an obligation to create an even playing field for all of this country's citizens and immigrants alike. I am not a socialist. I do not seek enforced equality. However, there has to be equality of opportunity, and the private sector, left to its own devices, will never achieve this goal. This site is for Liberals and progressives news and commentary.- Ron Mills 954-394-4980 Ron@RonMills.us